I guess you can’t rid yourself of expectations after all. I prepared myself for awkwardness, for isolation, for being misunderstood and somewhat disliked. I wasn’t really prepared for being the first host student of the nicest family I think I’ve ever met. The four sisters and mother are almost smotheringly nice…I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so much attention in two days in my whole life. I guess I will have to just put the independent part of me back in my suitcase and under my bed for now, because there’s no place for her to have alone time here.
I never thought I would feel more like an object of curiosity than I did in Senegal and Mali, where my color made me so clearly different.
That was until I woke up in the middle of the night last night to whispering women standing over my bed, peering at my face with the lights on their cell phones. When I stirred (still pretending to be asleep), they ran away giggling. One of them was my host mother, and the other was a neighbor.
I think the Senegalese and Malians I know have a kind of calm indifference that I took for granted until now. The women here seem very dramatic and excitable. More like Americans. I realize I’m generalizing way to much.
Anyway, I was a little unprepared for how warm a welcome I got, but it is wonderful, and the hopes I tried not to have are starting to rise on their own, because I can’t see how things will go wrong with such sweet and curious people.
The strange thing is that there is actually another American living in the same house with me. We were put together, after doing our orientation together last week. Why have I not yet mentioned him? Because I never EVER see him. I’ve been here three days and I’ve glimpsed him twice. We got to eat dinner together on Friday, but “just this once,” they told me. He lives upstairs, with my host brother. I live downstairs, with the sisters and mother. The family is strictly Muslim, and strictly separated. He is not allowed to come downstairs without my host brother, and I’m not supposed to go up there. When he was in the house, the girls were all quiet and veiled. Suddenly, after he left, I found out what I was really in for as 5 women I hadn’t seen before rushed me with questions and touching and advice and tea and talking. It took me about 10 minutes to realize these were the same women who had met me as I came in.
As the homestay director warned us, the other American and I will be having completely different experiences within the same household. Bizarre.
